[daveharty]

(I apologize in advance if someone has already suggested something like this.)

If you are like me you get a lot of email spam pushing "personality surveys", Briggs Myers tests, etc. I don't know much about these, other than they purport to boil one's personality down to a short string of characters for classification purposes. I'm not sure how useful they are, but I was considering the problem of partner compatibility in bridge, and thought something like this might be useful for identifying other players that might be a good match for your own "bridge personality" and preferences. If you could look at another player's profile and there was, say, some sort of shorthand code for where they stood along various bridge-related axes, it might be more useful than trying to distill from a list of preferred conventions what sort of player someone is. So I came up with six characteristics which might be useful for this purpose; a player could self-evaluate where they stand on these six axes by assigning a number from 1 to 9 , and come up with a string like 378562, or 294451, or whatever. Someone who was "middle of the road" on all six axes would be a 555555.

Please note that I am not approaching the topic of self-evaluation of SKILL LEVEL. We are all aware of the problems with that. These characteristics are more indications of your bridge "philosophy" in various areas, for the purposes of determining compatibility with potential partners. I'm sure that my list of characteristics could be refined and improved, please don't hesitate to make suggestions. My list (the first two deal with bidding/system issues, the next two with defensive issues, and the last two are more general):

1. COMPLICATION. This would measure how comfortable someone is with depth of agreements in a bidding system. A "1" would prefer very few agreements (maybe Goren Standard circa 1950 or so), while a "9" would enjoy system notes running into the hundreds of pages. There might be some correlation between a higher Complication number and a preference for system artificiality, but I can also imagine someone who prefers natural methods that wants to explore every possible permutation of the auction.

2. BIDDING AGGRESSION. Fairly self-explanatory. A "1" would be ultra-sound, always having full values for overcalls, classic shape for various doubles, textbook preempts, etc. A "9" would be ultra-aggressive, someone who frequently (constantly?) takes "suspect" actions for the sake of causing problems for the opponents; they go for a lot of numbers but think that the tradeoff is ultimately worth it.

3. CARDING PHILOSOPHY. This would measure someone's preference for depth of defensive agreements. A "1" would prefer very few carding agreements, relying instead on judgment and general principles. A "9" would prefer extensive carding agreements where every spot card played has a specific and identifiable meaning.

4. LEAD AGGRESSION. Within the bounds dictated by scoring form considerations, a "1" would almost never make an aggressive or attacking lead, preferring instead to make safe leads that are unlikely to give anything up. A "9" almost always makes attacking leads, even at matchpoints, preferring to go for the set.

5. COMPETITIVENESS. A "1" might regard bridge as a purely social activity, or as a purely cerebral exercise in problem-solving. A "9" regards bridge as a bloodsport, or as a forum to express their intellectual dominance.

6. "POST-MORTEMITIS". This would measure someone's willingness/eagerness to engage in postmortems. A "1" doesn't really care for discussing the hands afterwards; once they are done, it's on to the next game. A "9" prefers to go over their results with a fine-toothed comb, whether good or bad; the post-mortem might last as long or longer than the session itself.

So, that's my list. For what it's worth, I would call myself a 775567.

Any opinions?

[wyman]

 daveharty, on 2010-October-21, 20:30, said:

So, that's my list. For what it's worth, I would call myself a 775567.

Any opinions?

I like. Also I agree, roughly, with your self-assessment. I would rate myself approximately similar, perhaps a little closer to "bloodsport". At least that's how I usually feel at the table.

I feel like a 1-5 would suffice, though, as I have a hard time with such a fine mesh.

[Phil]

Hi ♥ I'm a 359581 from Orange County, CA. I like spy novels, long walks along the beach and salsa dancing.

If you are a 359511, I will wait at the Starbucks at the Irvine Spectrum with a red rose and a completed convention card.

[matmat]

8675309

[Siegmund]

I'll say 777487. (The only hard one is 'aggression' - I like having firm agreements and sticking closely to them, wide-range preempts are not my style, but the agreement itself can be very pushy. Some people would probably say that makes me only a 4.) I could easily be talked into wavering a couple points either direction.

Interesting poll.

[Free]

897570

The 0 in the end means I'm not discussing the hands at the table, it's on to the next game. But afterwards at the bar or at home I'm very eager to analyze the boards in dept and see what went good or wrong. So one way it's a 1, another way it's a 9.

The 2nd number depends on the partnership, but I prefer to be very agressive.

[Fluffy]

I have problems with bidding agression cos I am ultra sound for some people on certain positions and sick agressive on others. So a letter for varies might be in order

My online profile

1V1811

My offline profile

8V3698

[Free]

 Fluffy, on 2010-October-22, 02:45, said:

I have problems with bidding agression cos I am ultra sound for some people on certain positions and sick agressive on others. So a letter for varies might be in order

My online profile

1V1811

My offline profile

8V3698

Big contrast

[billw55]

474774

Suggestions: I think the items should be ordered differently. The two aggressive/conservative items should be together (first and second?) and the two simple/complex ones also (third/fourth?). This would make it easier to parse these genernal characteristics at a glance.

Also I would like to see one more item, a flexible/rigid spectrum. How willing are you to upgrade/downgrade, open 1NT with a 6 card minor, use judgement vs. point count, modify bids and plays considering ops and circumstances, etc.

[NickRW]

I'll call myself a 755577 - but I hate post mortems at the table - leave 'em until after the session.

[daveharty]

 billw55, on 2010-October-22, 06:22, said:

474774

Suggestions: I think the items should be ordered differently. The two aggressive/conservative items should be together (first and second?) and the two simple/complex ones also (third/fourth?). This would make it easier to parse these genernal characteristics at a glance.

Also I would like to see one more item, a flexible/rigid spectrum. How willing are you to upgrade/downgrade, open 1NT with a 6 card minor, use judgement vs. point count, modify bids and plays considering ops and circumstances, etc.

Yeah, I wasn't really thinking of the optimum order for the characteristics, you might be right about grouping the "aggression" items together etc.

Interesting idea about a flexibility/rigidity spectrum. I think it would be partially included in the other items (for instance, I think that someone who self-rates as low on the system complexity axis might by implication indicate that judgment is more important to them than a rules-based system approach; of course maybe they just don't like to memorize system stuff!), but it might be useful to give this characteristic its own axis.

[Rain]

562644

If you average the sum of these numbers, do you get an "expertise score"? Highest is ostensibly more of an expert player, self rated!

[W Kovacs]

Interesting. I rated myself as 776577 after some internal debate. The post-mortems definitely belong after the session, but all negative hands and some of the postitives deserve scrutiny.

 matmat, on 2010-October-21, 21:33, said:

8675309

For a good time call!

[pooltuna]

462681

[Phil]

I wonder if 655321 is really 655321?

I kind of doubt it.

[helene_t]

836728.

Someone should make a poll out of this, with the new multi-poll feature it is well suited for a poll.

[mfa1010]

769884

Fun. The second one on overall bidding aggressiveness is particularly hard, because I think it varies a lot in different situations. I'm in the spectre from 3-8 so I'll award myself a 6.

[awm]

967252 for me.

Given what Sam and I play, I have to answer 9 for bidding complexity. However, I very much believe it is better to have agreements about general principles rather than hundreds (or thousands) of pages simply enumerating sequences. The length of our notes doesn't really scale with the complexity of the agreements.

Bidding aggressiveness is a funny thing; for me I think it is highly vulnerability dependent. At NV I make a lot of four-card overcalls, preempt on five card suits (even occasionally at the three-level), and have been known to psych on occasion. At V I'm pretty conservative, don't even really open at the one-level on less than 11 hcp, very classical preempts, etc.

I've played "obvious shift" carding and like it, and am interested in trying combine leads, so this probably puts me in the more complicated lead/carding agreements group.

It really frustrates me to make the only lead that allows my opponents to make a contract, so I'm a big fan of the passive leads. Besides the psychology, passive leads have a lot of advantages including that many people overbid to bad games (so you don't need to do anything spectacular to set), and that they are generally better at double-dummy (and I have a lot of confidence in my after-trick-one defense). Perhaps this makes me more of a matchpoint player than a lot of the forums (BAM is by far my favorite form of scoring).

In terms of competitiveness, I take my own play quite seriously and try hard to do well. I can get rather upset at myself if I make mistakes that I think are things I should get right. But with that said, I think it is important to be nice to others and try to have a good time. A lot of people who describe themselves as "very competitive" strike me more as "jerks" -- much as I like to do well, I'd rather lose than be perceived of using unethical behavior in order to win. For example, I don't try to intimidate my opponents by intentionally showing up late for a match, refusing to give my name when opponents introduce themselves, or lying to the director when he is called to the table (all behaviors I've seen from people who are "competitors trying to win")... and I don't have a good opinion of people who do such things. It's also important to me to keep my bridge commitments (unless real life seriously interferes) -- I don't ditch my teammates or partner if I get an offer of better teammates or partner later on (another behavior I've seen from people who "want to win").

Most of my partners like to discuss the hands more than I do -- they often seem to ask me questions about what they should've done on a particular hand, whereas I pretty much zone out when they are declaring. It can be important to discuss bidding/carding issues that come up for future partnership reference and I've occasionally initiated this sort of discussion between hands, but I tend not to be that interested in analyzing results or play problems during a session.

[mtvesuvius]

I would give myself a 863683

Doubt we need to ask what 655321 would give himself =)

[mikeh]

I'd be 857786, tho it has been a while since I have had a partner willing to have ultra-detailed system agreements.....I yearn for my days playing relay I was, for several years, a 9+ in that area.

While I gauge myself as 5 on aggression in the bidding, my reputation is probably more of a 2 or 3....but I have been increasing my aggression significantly in recent years.

Some would say my intensity level is a 9.